Communication professor Douglas Thomas' politically focused computer game was featured in a New York Times article about the current expansion of the serious video game market. Since the creation of games like MTV's "Darfur is Dying" and USC Center on Public Diplomacy contest winner "Peacemaker," developers are focusing on games that role play complex real-world political and social conflicts. Thomas is developing his own video game where players try to gerrymander different states by redistricting. "The election system is rigged to keep incumbents in, but nobody understands it," Thomas said. His game is intended "to show them how easy it is to game the system. You’ll be able to give it to a first-grade class and let them fix Texas. Then you can say, hey, a 6-year-old can do a more fair job." Thomas is founding editor of Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media, a quarterly international journal that publishes innovative research about games and culture within the context of interactive media.
Douglas Thomas' faculty page
Read the New York Times article